People on the edge in the Horn

What impact do displaced people and refugees have on the place where they eke out their living from resources under pressure? Is land degradation due to natural factors or to the people on the edge? How do the people react to the loss of income due to land degradation? Do they become more innovative and more responsive to changes in agricultural techniques? Or do their land use practices become ever more exploitative? Most policies concerned with the settlement of the nomads, peasants, refugees, internally displaced persons and returnees fail to take into account their impact on the environment. In this important book, Gaim Kibreab questions the degree of the impact of Eritreans displaced by the war with Ethiopia on a region of the Sudan. Was the land degradation on and around the scheme due to humans and their livestock? The study provides evidence to question many assumptions.